Shattered Lands: A Short History of the Syrian Conflict

Image by Levi Meir Clancy.

This piece was first published on CounterPunch in March 2011.

When the Arab Spring came to the Middle East ten years ago, most on the left welcomed the protests, except in Libya and Syria largely out of geopolitical concerns. If the world was made up of opposing camps, you had to support Washington’s enemies even if their secret police were torturers and their governments little more than family dynasties. Libya was far more up-front about being the wholly-owned...